Commercially successful acts yes. Real music and musicians. No.

Total agreement with all your comments on this thread. The level of mass marketing & PR used to make One Direction, Little Mix etc "a thing" has been astounding. They would never have made it on musical talent alone.
We still have Little Mix songs being pumped out at every X Factor ad break to brainwash the hard of thinking into jumping on their bandwagon.

Your opinion as always OP 🤔🤔

The problem isn't that DS posters are out of touch, the problem is that many of us can see that the music industry has been transformed.

The industry used to be about creativity, about hearing something like Tubular Bells for the first time, about hearing lyrics that connected on a personal level.

Now the industry has been consumed by fake acts having formulaic tracks created on the cheap by a committee of men in grey suits. They then use their budgets to create brands & mass market the product at the low level proles who know no better and lap it up.

Even worse, the industry blocks real artists from getting any mass media exposure as not to reveal to the proles what real music actually sounds like.

And then these proles go on online forums to tell us that we're out of touch if we don't enjoy the dull repetitive thud of the latest "Now That's What I Call Accountancy Standards Volume 37".

Thanks you!

I mean I wouldn't have an issue with this sort it stuff if they would stop pretending it was about music. It's not. The pretence is laughable. We have Louisa who never heard of one of the greatest bands and songwriters of all time saying the song could have been written for her.

I just find it so soulless and factory like. Churning out bland renditions and blander contestants.

It's the constant style over substance that really irks me.

Soulless rhythm and bass pap that's been done to death.

The crazy thing is that despite all the attention and money thrown at it the income generated from teenies/tweenies is still dwarfed by the over 35s. It's ludicrous how few sales are needed to get a single to no 1 in some weeks. The focus still seems to be singles where the money is really in albums or multi-buying of an artist's song book.

it was that point i made earlier in the thread that the blinkered focus on whats in the singles chart completely disregards the huge amount of success that happens via album sales from artists and bands

I think people need the voice and that "x factor". That's the point. They need to have both.

A good singer who performs and has charisma will most likely get more attention than an outstanding vocalist who just stands there belting out Whitney week after week.

It's all in the marketing in Cowell's world.

Take little mix pretty poor vocalists and no real talent. But invest millions and apply tons of polish through technology and then market them as a package using a range of media and bingo you have a group aso real as the Archies and the Wombles.

Then look at Cheryl Double-Barrelled and see how the same fairy dust was sprinkled of her. She's also a great example of the massive gulf between the product and the person.

Well the outstanding vocalist should realise that belting out stuff a la Houston is crappy, clichéd and gets a bunch of chavs giving a standing ovation on the orders of the floor manager.

The x factor is a great example of so much that's bad and soul destroying.

Couldn't have said it better myself!

Once again a great point. Problem is what the buying public want and what the type of viewer who watches this show are is incompatible.

Sad but true. It's on so many levels in society too, to get really serious. Talk about " you can fool some of the people, all of the time" etc. Who ever coined that phrase was a genius.
Just checked apparently it could have been Abraham Lincoln but it's not conclusive.

I think the problem is that the industry has changed so much over the last few years and the show hasn't always kept up with it. When Lady Gaga and Katy Perry were at their peak a few years ago performance was probably seen as more important than vocals, but now the industry is dominated much more by vocalists than performance type acts. It's flipped back and too a few times in the last decade.

I think in the years Simon was away they were attracting acts which reflected what was going on in the industry - the likes of Ella Henderson and James Arthur in 2012 for example, and although the live show theme weeks do hurt the format on the whole back then they were able to show their individuality. I do feel since Cowell has returned we've gone back to Pop Idol style wannabees of people who might be able to sing but have very little individuality and are pretty much cookie cutter contestants. The viewers aren't able to connect with them and the live show format especially isn't encouraging them to play to their strengths - it has a one size fits all approach. The farce of the "This is Me" week with acts singing songs they've never heard of summed it all up.

Firstly, Pop music has always had commercially successful pop acts... The Monkees, The Bay City Rollers, Sweet, Mud, Wham, Kylie, The Spice Girls, Girls Aloud amongst many others. The idea of manufactured pop music isn't new. And there has been some classic pop tunes produced along the way. The songwriting teams that have supported artists like this have talent too. Presumably you wouldn't think of Motown as having produced anything other than quality music most of the time?

Secondly, real musicians and real music belongs to a different realm for the most part. Real musicians mainly write and perform their own music and are more likely to turn up on 'Later with Jools' than the XF.

Perhaps you are expecting the new Whitney or Madonna to Adele to turn up on XF?
That train has gone.

Not every artist makes it on music talent alone. The material they produce or are given is what is important. and despite your reservations, 1D's 'What makes you beautiful' and Leona Lewis's 'Bleeding Love' are great pop songs.

Like I said commercially successful acts like Leona and one direction have been produced. However let's not pretend the show is truthful in its intent. It would be all well and good if the show stopped pretending they wanted someone original or with music talent.

Exactly, so you're proving my point. I downplayed how much acts had made as I wasn't sure, but I knew that overall it's a success. I mean, the show makes money from advertising and phone ins, even if only one act made it, Cowell would still walk out of there in pocket, that was my point.

I think the show is out of touch with the music industry. All the acts they're pushing this year wouldn't have felt out of place if they had appeared on the show ten years ago. Except for Mason Noise, who seems to have fallen through a portal from the early 90s.